Buzzard

source: Buzzard

Buzzard is like a punk rock band that refused to sign a contract with a big company and didn't care about Joaquin Phoenix at all. Fans of the Todd Phillips film should watch it. And it came 5 years before the blockbuster.

There hasn't been a slacker this compelling since Ignatius J Reilly. It's the most punk rock movie I've seen since Penelope Spheeris's "The Decline of Western Civilization Part III". Rock on Portykus!

You get just enough of a peek into the characters to want more and more and you could spin-off anyone of their appealing lives in a full feature film. I'd love to see a Derek spin-off personally as it would make for a fantastic flick. You could have that guy just walk from one end of a street to the other and enjoy what happens. Marty Jackitansky goes rogue, but does it in such a human manner that you feel emotions for the guy you didn't think possible. I wanted to hate him, but in a single scene you're left feeling sorry for Marty, then almost allied with his misguided cause. I didn't want the story to end, but seeing how it plays out into a violent crescendo was just beautiful. It's screams indie with pure perfection and while some films of the same style let you down in the final third, Buzzard just keeps surprising with all the right turns. I can't give it any less than a 10, as it was my film of 2014 and one of the best of its kind in any given year.

"I may live badly, but at least I don't have to *work* to do it." Hitchhiker from Richard Linklater's Slacker. The slacker, Marty (Joshua Burg), in his titular reference, Buzzard, is more socially disaffected than Napoleon Dynamite and scarier in a covert sense than Freddie Krueger. In all, this comedy drama is a witty allegory about teen anomie and an indictment of a society that constructs barriers through bureaucratic indifference. Marty is a small time scam artist, mostly stealing checks from his temp work at a bank to trading in discarded McDonald's sandwiches from the garbage for fresh ones. All the while this metal meat head has a poster of Freddie and a glove with knives for digits. You guessed it: If director Joel Potrykus places the glove in a shot early on, chances are we'll see it later on in a far less sedentary shot. Yet meanwhile, Marty is pulling little cons with motel room access and check kiting and generally avoiding the law. He is alternately lovable in his counterculture way and menacing when faced with authority he doesn't respect. Through most of the film, Marty is an amusing though disreputable slacker, a temp worker ripping off the bank he works for and a buddy only temporarily engaged while he thinks of his next low-level crime. "Buzzard" should get the year's prize for the most accurate title in film. Marty feeds off the carrion of society while he literally does so in his McDonald's larcenies. Until the climax, he evades the authorities, who must by now be up to his game. Without focusing on his criminal activities, an inference could be drawn that society needs to be vigilant and proactive to help these Napoleons have meaningful lives. Otherwise, Freddie has spawned a most lethal buzzard.

People must be seeing something I'm not because this was barely even a movie. Any group of people with a camera could have made this. Scenes go on and on and on with nothing happening. I like artsy flicks, and slice of life flicks are great sometimes. This fails at everything it tries and wasn't funny in the least. I literally didn't laugh the entire runtime.

Paranoia forces small-time scam artist Marty (Joshua Burge) to flee his hometown and hide out in a dangerous Detroit. With nothing but a pocket full of bogus checks, his Nightmare Power Glove, and a bad temper, the horror metal slacker lashes out. The film starts off strong, great impression of the main character without even showing his face. We then transition to a clever, devious and hilarious bank scene. Which gets better as it goes... heck, the film could stop after the first five minutes and it would be a winner. There is no doubt the creator of this film loves horror. There are references to horror classics like "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Return of the Living Dead", "Wicker Man", "Demons" and "Suspiria". Heck, there is even a full-sized poster for "Leviathan", which is a rare find. In summary, the film is one great scene after another. Treadmill Bugles? Brilliant. The spaghetti incident? Brilliant. Scamming a McDonalds? Brilliant. Some critic smarter than me says the film is "notable for reigniting the angry young man niche, both in aesthetic and voice." Now, whether or not that is true is beyond me. Seems it is hard to reignite anything by itself... would it not have to create a trend? But it does have a man fighting against his own futility -- a futility he largely creates. And there is a message in there somewhere.

I loved everything about this film. An angry young mortgage worker starts to get into trouble with his scams and basically goes off on the world. Shot in MI (I think) with the bad side of Detroit on display. Lots of metal music and horror homages. Super cool through and through. Very funny characters, but not too wacky or intentional. They seem like real guys from my high school (even though they're probably in their late 20s.) Its funny sometimes, and dark and weird a lot of other times. A great blend that doesn't really fit into any genre. I was lucky enough to catch it at SXSW in my hometown, and cant wait to show my friends once it comes back to town. No romance no gushy crap!

I saw another reviewer compare this to Napoleon Dynamite and I will say they are similar in the way that they both don't really go anywhere or they're not really about anything. This movie was boring and the protagonist was unlikable and largely unrelatable. I can see his struggles but his unwillingness to own up to anything and only lash out at society is such a played out trope at this point and his goals were seemingly meaningless. As always, watch the film and make up your own mind, but I won't be viewing this again.